Atlas Capital Advisors

Evidence Based. Systematic. Transparent. Liquid.

Evidence Based. Systematic. Transparent. Liquid.

ABOUT

Atlas Capital Advisors is an independent, S.E.C. registered investment advisor based in San Francisco.
We provide customized investment solutions that deliver performance at a reasonable price.
Our systematic investment approach is grounded in academic and proprietary research.
We emphasize strong risk management and capital preservation.
Our clients compensate us on a fee-only basis.

WHY ATLAS?

- Jono Tunney, Founder and Managing Partner

“Atlas was founded to provide investors with better than index performance by focusing on empirical evidence of what actually drives persistent returns. We have achieved this goal while eliminating the need for financial intermediaries who bloat costs and adversely impact returns.”

We are quantitative money managers who value

Systematic Approach

We are disciplined unemotional investors

Transparency

We show you how, why and what investments we make to generate returns

Liquidity

We invest only in publicly traded securities with deep daily trading volume

Diversification

We typically hold a smaller subset of the benchmarking index, 80+ stocks

Customization

We help clients express their social values and minimize single stock risk

Our Investment Philosophy

Evidence Based Methodology

At Atlas Capital Advisors, we've formulated our equity investment thinking over a number of years, drawing heavily from personal experience and leading academic research. Successful investing requires a long term perspective. Too frequently the investing community can focus on near term results or the latest fad , neither of ...

Keep Fees Low

Atlas operates as a registered investment advisor and fees are charged on invested assets without the return-sharing typical of hedge funds or the layering of costs typical of fund of funds, investment brokerage firms and insurance companies. There have been numerous academic studies quantifying how the layering of fees adversely affects client ...

Transaction Costs Matter

Transaction costs can have a large impact of portfolio performance. Our proprietary software incorporates all three levels of the transactional cost pyramid when making our trading decisions. Most people tend to focus on commissions when they think about transaction cost, but commissions turn out to have a small overall impact ...

HOW IS ATLAS DIFFERENT

We believe that through academically tested factors, our client portfolios can perform slightly better than the market

We believe a financial advisor should not get paid based on what products their clients use

We believe most of what is sold in the industry is not necessarily in the best interest of the client

We are a fiduciary to our clients – placing client’s interests ahead of our own

We invest our own assets in the same strategies that we invest our client assets

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operating since

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CFA Charters

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Assets Under Management

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Composite Strategies

Services

Our objective is to help clients meet their financial goals with thoughtful planning and investing strategies

Financial Planning

Any sound individual financial strategy requires client discussion before developing an implementation plan. Together, we create your unique Investment Policy Statement after a full understanding of your risk tolerances, investment objectives, aggregate wealth and income, as well as current risks to your goals.

Asset Allocation

The Atlas asset allocation approach is based on techniques developed by some of the country’s largest and most sophisticated institutional investors. Atlas uses this experience, academic research and continuing proprietary research to create a dynamic, market aware, diversified asset allocation approach.

Investment Management

We provide equity, fixed income, balanced, futures and currency management through customized separate accounts. We can be turn key service providers through our various investment strategies or comprehensive capital managers using our proprietary asset allocation models.

Risk Management

Risk to achieving your financial objectives can take many forms and may not be limited to Atlas managed portfolios. Our partners have extensive experience managing risk for individuals and institutions. We offer tax efficient solutions to reduce benchmark, asset/liability, market, interest rate and currency risks. Please contact us!

Concentrated Exposure Management

Concentrated holdings exposure increases aggregate wealth risk. Such exposures include company stock held by executives, employee stock options, legacy low cost single equity positions, or any asset class that is heavily overweight and can’t be efficiently sold. Atlas is proficient at helping clients manage this unique risk.

OUR TEAM

People that contribute to Atlas Capital Advisors' Success.

Jonathan E. Tunney, CFA

Managing Partner - PM

Atlas founder, Jonathan (Jono) Tunney, brings deep and broad expertise to bear on global economic analysis, asset allocation, business valuation, portfolio design, and risk management. His experience includes responsibility for worldwide currency risk management and more than $100 billion in annual foreign exchange transactions as Director of Foreign Exchange for Hewlett Packard. He holds a BA in Economics and Political Science from Stanford University, an MBA in Finance from the Anderson School at UCLA, and the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

Albert J. Gutierrez, CFA

Partner - PM

Albert J. Gutierrez has been at Atlas since 2010 and has over 30 years of extensive capital markets experience including several executive positions at multi-billion dollar institutional investment advisers. Bert was Chief investment Officer at SCM Advisors, EVP of portfolio management and trading at American General Investment Management, and SVP responsible for research, trading and insurance asset management at Conseco Capital Management. He holds a BS in Economics, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and a Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

William Preston Raisin

Partner

William Preston Raisin joined Atlas Capital as partner in September 2011. He has over 30 years of capital markets and money management experience. Preston began his career building a book of high net worth clients for Shearson Lehman Brothers in 1986 through 1988, and then spent four intensive years managing money under the Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette research platform. He joined First Boston in 1992 and subsequently moved to Bear Stearns in 1995 where he managed a proprietary fund and became one of the firm's youngest partners. Preston holds a B.A. in English Literature from UCLA.

Jocelyn Doe

Managing Director

Jocelyn Doe joined Atlas in 2016 with 25 years of finance and investment experience. She led an outsourced CIO team to serve multi-national tech entrepreneurs at The Presidio Group and helped launch the Silicon Valley office of JPMorgan private banking. Prior to managing private capital, Jocelyn was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley & Co. and Lehman Brothers Inc. advising technology companies in Silicon Valley, New York, and Hong Kong. She graduated with an A.B. in Economics and Political Science from Stanford University and a MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA.

Taylor Reed

Managing Director

Taylor is a managing Director of Business Development. Taylor has 25 years of Capital Markets experience. He has spent a majority of his career as a Senior Portfolio Manager in Convertible Arbitrage and Derivative Strategies. He has extensive experience in portfolio management, risk analysis, financial modeling, and trading. He has worked at Wedbush Securities, The Royal Bank of Canada, US Bancorp Piper Jaffray, Banc of America, and UBS Securities. Taylor holds a BS in Finance from Villanova School of Business.

Peter Berta

Managing Director

Peter has over 34 years of capital markets experience in both trading and sales. He began his career at Shearson Lehman Brothers as a financial consultant. Peter later helped find the investment banking firm Pacific Growth Equities in San Francisco which was acquired by Wedbush Securities in 2009. He subsequently worked for Emerging Growth Equites as the head of west coast sales before he joined Atlas. Peter holds a BS in Marketing from San Diego State University.

Stephen Pijas, JD

Managing Director

Stephen Pijas has over 19 years of industry experience. He holds a BA from University of California at Berkeley and a Juris Doctor from USF Law School. He has worked with numerous leading financial companies on an institutional basis, as well as advising individuals on how to manage their personal wealth. He began his financial career with Nueberger Berman and Lehman Brothers.

Michael Bodnyk, CFA

Systems Analyst

Mike has over 10 years of experience developing computer systems for risk management, portfolio optimization, back-testing, and trading applications used by hedge funds and registered investment advisers. He previously worked at Evolution Capital Management, an Asian multi-strategy hedge fund. Mike holds a BS in Business Administration and Computing Science from Simon Fraser University and a Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

Katya Spolidoro

Systems Analyst

Katya joined Atlas in 2013 as a financial analyst. She holds a BA in Business Administration and finance from European University in Switzerland, an MS in Economics from Fordham University, New York. She previously worked at Guatemalan Universidad Francisco Marroquín as a data researcher and as a CRM analyst at Cartier.

Lillian Tang

Financial Analyst

Lillian Tang joined Atlas Capital in 2016 as a financial analyst. She holds a BA in Legal Studies from UC Berkeley, and she recently completed the 12 month Management and Business Track with a concentration in Finance from Berkeley as well. She previously worked at GSVlabs, a startup accelerator, as a research analyst.

QUARTERLY ASSET ALLOCATION

GLOBAL DOWNSIDE PROTECTED (GDP) ALLOCATION

PURPOSE

The Atlas Global Downside Protected (GDP) equity strategy is designed to address the three most important issues faced by equity investors:

Do current market conditions favor a relatively high, or relatively low, portfolio allocation to public equities?

How should equity investments be allocated across geographies?

What’s a good way to avoid being harmed by the periodic severe bear markets experienced by equity investors?

ATLAS RISK ASSET ALLOCATION

Asset allocation is the most important decision one can make as an investor. Each quarter, Atlas Capital Advisors updates estimates of the expected returns of each asset class, and adjusts allocations accordingly. We make these decisions in a systematic repeatable way using approaches grounded in academic evidence.

We are fundamental investors. We seek to increase weights in asset classes that are attractively priced, and reduce weights in those that are not. Attractively priced asset categories, with higher expected returns, have “good value” in our terminology.

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GLOBAL DOWNSIDE PROTECTED (GDP) ALLOCATION

Atlas Global Downside Protected (GDP)

Global Equity Strategy

July 2016 Update

Performance

The global capitalization weighted equity index (FTSE World net of tax) was down 0.62% in June 2016. GDP strategy performance net of fees in June was up 0.53%, 1.15% ahead of the index. From strategy inception on July 9, 2015 through the end of June 2016, the GDP strategy has a loss of 9.18%, net of fees. That is 4.88% below the loss of 4.30% for the global equity index over the same period. The underperformance since inception is primarily the result of the low weight in equities after the January downturn, which limited participation in the sharp rebound of the global equities market which ran from mid-February to April.

The GDP strategy went into June with 74% of the portfolio in the stock market. The choice by voters in the United Kingdom to exit the European Union (“Brexit”) roiled markets toward the end of the month. By June 27, the Monday after the vote, global stocks were off 5.5% for the month, with GDP off half as much at 2.7%. Global stocks then recovered almost all of that loss by June 30.

Most of the GDP positioning choices were beneficial in June. In particular, the strategy was helped by its underweight in Europe – just an 8.5% weight vs a benchmark weight of 20.7%. The other major benefits to performance were from:

–The overweight to Brazil. Brazil has a multitude of problems, just ahead of hosting the summer Olympic games, but nonetheless Brazilian stocks rocketed up 19.5% in June. Most of the gain was from a 12.4% rise in the Brazilian currency, which rallied on improved current account balances.

–The overweight to the US Telecom and Utilities sectors, each of which gained over 7% in June as investors sought “safe haven” assets.

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ATLAS RISK ASSET ALLOCATION

Asset allocation is the most important decision one can make as an investor. Each quarter, Atlas Capital Advisors updates estimates of the expected returns of each asset class, and adjusts allocations accordingly. We make these decisions in a systematic repeatable way using approaches grounded in academic evidence.

Foundations of Atlas Risk Asset Allocation

We are fundamental investors. We seek to increase weights in asset classes that are attractively priced, and reduce weights in those that are not. Attractively priced asset categories, with higher expected returns, have “good value” in our terminology.

The evidence for making investment decisions in alignment with value is robust. On average, based on data since 1980, the annual return of single country stock markets with the top third most attractive valuations outperform the bottom third by 5% per year.

We also use price trends as a catalyst for determining when to enter positions. Through long experience in the markets, we have repeatedly seen asset classes that appear to have strong value characteristics continue to get cheaper. Many of the emerging equity markets have had this characteristic in the last five years. We have learned that it is better in the long run to wait for cheap asset classes to start rising in price before committing to an overweight. Similarly, it’s better to wait for expensive asset classes to start falling in price before moving to an underweight.

The evidence to consider trend is also strong. For instance, in stock market history, the future return tends to be better if the past return is positive than if it is negative. On average, if the past 6 – 12 month stock market return is positive, the next quarter return is 1.5% to 2.0% higher than if the prior 6 – 12 month return is negative.

3Q2017 update

If you have any questions about our products or services, please contact us!

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RESOURCES

Asset allocation has the single largest impact on client portfolio returns - yet interestingly is a area where policy is set based on 'what others are doing' or some static ratio (e.g. 60/40 equities versus bonds) and is rarely influenced by current market conditions. At Atlas, asset allocation gets the attention it deserves.

In 1992-1993, Eugene Fama and Kenneth French published several academic papers that provided investing ideas that expanded on the classic Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). They showed that over long periods of time, 90% of returns from diversified portfolios can be explained by 1) beta (the essential CAPM factor ...

Stock momentum is the concept that a stock that has performed well recently will continue to perform well, and that a stock that has performed poorly will also continue to perform poorly. Behaviorally, people tend to hold on to and buy stocks that have consistently appreciated (even when a company has a ...

What if we told you that you can invest your money in the S&P 500 and you don’t have to worry about losing it? That’s right, if the market goes up, you get to participate in those market gains and yet if the market goes down, you get your initial investment back. This is ...

More and more investors are growing concerned about current equity valuations and are wondering “should I get out of the market”. Ironically, there are arguments to support both bullish and bearish sides of the debate: Academic research widely supports the notion that long-term investing requires commitment to an investment discipline. Additionally, there’s plenty of evidence ...

Most investors have bought or sold a public common stock at one point in their lives. The process is quite transparent and simple to understand. Normally, stocks have very tight bid-ask spreads (the price difference between where the current market will buy the stock and where it will sell the stock), fairly deep trade volume such that ...

Qualitative Stock Picking and Market Timing

Atlas Capital Advisors

We are an independent, fee-only registered investment advisor dedicated to providing unbiased advice to our clients. Our specialty is the design and management of sophisticated, tax-sensitive portfolios for individuals and institutional investors. We seek to produce desirable returns while minimizing costs through proven investment strategies that include separate equity and fixed income securities.